13 comments:

It's always disconcerting when your team sees a guy that's gotten progressively work for a long time and then snatches him up. Like back when I cared about the NFL, rooting for the Jets, and they got Neil O'Donnell: "Threw a key, game-losing interception? In the Super Bowl?? That's our man!"

On the other hand, a guy who had been getting progressively worse and emerged as a terrific closer was Dennis Eckersley. Luis Tiant had been lousy for two years before re-emerging as the Sox ace. Ray Culp had declined when the Sox picked him up for nothing in 1968, and he turned into their ace. Don't forget Doug Jones, Jose Mesa and Dustin Hermanson. A lot of guys out there could be effective closers if they got a real shot...typically a low-budget team will go fishing and uncover one, while the teams with the cash just take the easy way and over-pay for an established closer, who fails to deliver about 50% of the time. Given the fact that the average Sox closer has one good year in him, one year in which he breaks down or just stinks, and that's it, I don't think the mass closer audition is a bad idea at all...especially if Papelbon is a fall-back

I'm not super-upset about having the guy, because he is at least a guy I've heard of for years instead of some NL guy that Theo has a crush on because of some fantasy stat he had in 1999 before massive injuries that he never quite recovered from. I'm just sayin', good job by JoyBoy showing us the rather amazing decline in stats that the guy's had.

We're not even trying to win with these moves. One of these days, we'll get a GM with a set plan and an eye for talent evaluation, and then maybe we'll be able to compete.

Moves like this are just a joke.

And as for the Eckersley comparison, Eck still had a 4:1 k/bb rate after he'd become progressively worse.

The problem with the mass closer attempt is that 1). We're the Red Sox, and actually have a chance to compete, and 2). we'll be throwing away games while we audition incompetent players like Tavarez and Pineiro for the role.

Does Theo have a dart board?Piniero does have quite the bad trend. 4 mil guaranteed seems like a lot even in a crazy market for his numbers. Fenway is less forgiving than Safeco to boot. I think we should stay with Papelbon as closer. The guy had a historic year. The "headcase" guys like him have come up as great closers over the years.

I definatly think pap should stay a closer. We already have 5 good starters of lester returns 100%. Pap was arguably the most dependable arm in the league last season, and if we had made the post season, he would have been a shoe-in for some heavy duty hardware. keep him a closer, and let Mariano Riveria become the number 2 man in the league.

Malphabet is one of The 25. Nothing -- not even Steinbrenner's strange compulsion of wanting to sign the entire 2004 Red Sox roster (thinking it will lead to a MFY title, I guess) -- will change that.

And how many times does Theo et al. have to say that Papelbon's shoulder likely cannot endure the rigors of closing (and would be much healthier with a strict starting schedule) before people get the message?